Whether you are a year-round athlete or just someone who occasionally works out, muscle strains are very common injuries that can set back your season or put a pause on your workout routine. Learn about how to prevent straining your muscles, and what to do if you think you have a strained muscle. Visit AFC Urgent Care Burlington for same-day urgent injury care near Burlington, MA. Available without an appointment 7 days a week from 8am-8pm!
What is a Muscle Strain
A strained muscle, also commonly referred to as a pulled muscle, occurs when you overextend your muscle causing it to tear. Muscle strains are common injuries, and the level of severity can range from mild to very severe. Your muscles tear lightly during a hard workout, which is how you build muscle. However, when you exercise without warming up and stretching properly, your muscles can suffer damaging tears that are much deeper than tears that occur during a workout. Mild tears can resolve as soon as a week after the injury, while severe tears can take weeks of rehabilitation to recover.
Symptoms of a muscle strain can vary depending on the severity of the tear and how the injury happened. Common symptoms of a muscle strain may include:
- Pain when moving the affected muscle
- Decreased strength in the affected area
- Swelling in the affected area
- Hearing a popping noise at the time of injury
- Muscle cramping around the affected area
How to Prevent Pulling a Muscle
Experiencing a pulled muscle can cause pain and discomfort for days or even longer depending on the severity of the tear. Because of this, it is important to take steps to prevent your muscles from tearing in the first place. Muscle tears are completely preventable if you take the correct steps before and after working out or doing any heavy lifting.
Take the following steps to prevent muscle tears:
- Always take time to stretch and warm up your muscles before working out
- Focus on using the correct technique when lifting heavy weights
- Don’t push yourself too hard
- Gradually increase your exercise load over time to allow your muscles time to develop and recover between sessions
How to Recover Quickly From a Muscle Strain
If you do think you have experienced a muscle tear, seeking urgent care can help ensure you are not suffering from a more severe injury such as damage to the tendons and ligaments that support your joints. Such injuries are severe and often require more in-depth rehabilitation and medical intervention.
If you think that you may have suffered a muscle tear, it is important to rest the affected area. The RICE method is often suggested by medical professionals to heal pulled muscles. This includes Resting from strenuous activities to give your muscles time to heal, Icing the affected area to manage swelling and pain, Compressing the affected muscle to prevent inflammation, and Elevating the injured area if possible.
Visit AFC Urgent Care Burlington for Walk-In Injury Care in Burlington, MA
If you have suffered a pulled muscle, seeking medical care is the best way to understand how to heal your injury as quickly and effectively as possible. Overdoing it and going back to exercising too quickly can cause more damage than good, which is why recovery should be overseen by a medical professional. At AFC Urgent Care Burlington we offer injury care on a walk-in basis every day from 8am-8pm.
Our medical staff is board-certified and trained to diagnose and create a recovery plan for common injuries including muscle strains. We understand that injuries can happen unexpectedly. That is why we never require that you schedule an appointment in advance, simply walk into our clinic for prompt injury care. For additional information regarding our clinic, please contact us directly by calling (781) 270-4700.
